Becoming a Boy
I’ve gotten a lot of comments on Yitzhak’s notoriously long hair being cut short 😊
OF COURSE, I have a story…
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In Judaism we grow out a boy’s hair until they turn 3, so Yitzhak’s hair flowed down his back.
He LOVED his hair, admired it, took pride in it, & grew very attached to it. He never let me put it up or clip it back, it was always down (& often in his face).
When the time came for his 1st haircut, he wanted nothing to do with it. So we clipped a tiny ceremonial piece, but while other boys his age cut their hair short, his hair stayed long.
We got a LOT of questions about keeping his hair long, & honestly, if it were up to me I would have cut it short from the beginning, but you know what? My belief is: his hair, his body, his choice. (Outside of anything un-safe or crossing a really integral part of our value system).
We are so often shown what is & isn’t “beautiful,” the “right” & “wrong” way to dress, cut our hair, wear our makeup & match our shoes. We have been compared & compare. We have lacked care & love & mis-used & felt insecure in our bodies.
Our body is our soul’s home & wherever we go we take our bodies with us. We want our children to feel beautiful, connected with & comfortable within those bodies, despite what anyone thinks or says- (including the parents;)) In a world with endless opinions, we want to foster our children’s abilities to listen to themselves, connect with what does & doesn’t feel right for THEM & feel safe to express, with self-respect, self-love & self-confidence. We can do that by creating a space for our children to call the shots on how they appear and express themselves physically (w/o comments!!); haircuts & styles, clothing, shoe choice etc…
We wanted to make sure Yitzi feeling heard & safe as we went at his pace. Over the course of 8 months he had 5 haircuts, each time trimming a bit more.
A few weeks ago we were reading a book & he pointed to the short haircut of one of the a characters & asked “Mommy, can I get a haircut like that?”
I booked the hairdresser to come right away.
Guess what? Now he looks at himself in the mirror & says “Wow, I love my short hair.”
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